


The Invention of Gender

by Interrobam



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Gender, Gen, Gender Issues, Good Omens Holiday Exchange 2013
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-08 21:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1137526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Interrobam/pseuds/Interrobam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every hundred years or so one of them would end up a child shaped being. It was Aziraphale this time who, after an unfortunate encounter with a trigger happy bank robber, found himself nine years old with braids and too thick glasses that needed constant pushing up the bridge of her nose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Invention of Gender

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tantamoq](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tantamoq/gifts).



Every hundred years or so one of them would end up a child shaped being.

It was Aziraphale this time who, after an unfortunate encounter with a trigger happy bank robber, found himself nine years old with braids and too thick glasses that needed constant pushing up the bridge of her nose. Aziraphale thought bitter thoughts about whomever Up There was taking the whole “out of the mouths of babes” thing too seriously. As pleasant as the word of the Lord may sound in the lilting voice of a child, it was not worth the hassle it caused. Nine year olds weren't prone to owning dusty bookshops or getting drunk at the Ritz or meeting adult man shaped being in the park, which were the very things Aziraphale liked most about being corporeal. 

With much bitterness she boarded up the windows of her bookshop, posting garishly colored, official looking notices about some problem with mold or vermin or what have you on the door. She put away her tweed jackets and soft leather shoes for school uniforms that went out of fashion in the fifties and shiny mary janes. She had neither the skill nor the attention to keep her braids neat or moisturized or close to her head, but going to a hairdresser alone would attract unwanted attention, and her hair found itself behaving. 

She began meeting Crowley in libraries and playground, places where he could pass as a dashing single dad, perhaps an old cousin or young uncle. But Aziraphale liked having alone time too, and there were activities that Crowley had no interest in. Cut as she may the limitations of age, in the form of rules against unaccompanied minors and security guards who asked her if she knew where her mommy was, reared their hydra heads wherever she went.

Museums had no appeal to Crowley (“It doesn't make sense to show off a bunch of broken bowls and dusty rugs just because they're old. See if anyone would put a glass case over a chamber pot if they had had to use one.”) but Aziraphale found comfort in relaxing among the architecture of long dead civilizations. She would wander through the pale statues and stolen temples, a living relic among the dead, and recall events past. Some museums would let her stroll without so much as a glance, but her favorite had a strict policy: children under fifteen were to be accompanied by an adult at all times. It did not much matter that you were old enough to recite verse in the tongue that had been lost with the Tower of Babel; if you barely broke 130 centimeters and your face was still plump with baby fat they weren't about to let you in alone.

 

“You still owe me for that decade when you were twelve and I had to cover for you every time you got caught driving the Bentley.” Aziraphale, a middle aged curmudgeon in everything but flesh, pointed out, her fists shoved deep into the pockets of her skirt. Crowley rolled his eyes, guilty with the knowledge that he did, in fact, still owe her for that.

“Everyone glares daggers at me when we go out.”

“They won't as long as you remember that you aren't mean to be so intimate with me.” 

Crowley hunched his shoulders like a wounded feline, not at all pleased to be reminded of that night at the Ritz. Excited to have Aziraphale back on earth, he had quite forgotten about their apparently incompatible ages. He had leaned in to embrace her, only to be met with evasive maneuvers from the much more self aware angel and end up flat on his face on the floor.

“I was drunk.”

“And surely you can manage not to be drunk in the future.” Aziraphale scrunched up the muscles of her face in order to bring her heavy lenses back in front of her dark, critical eyes.

And that was that.

 

They met at the entrance of the museum that Friday, Aziraphale with a bounce in her step, Crowley with a scowl. They bought their tickets, and Aziraphale's shoes made clicking, telegraph sounds on the marble floor as she made her way to the wing where they kept their newest exhibits.

"They've got a lovely collection of stonework from around old Israel,” she began to chatter, knowing the way without need of a map, “you remember that place? It's been a while, the old kingdom hasn't been around since oh, a few thousand years hasn't it been? Yes I think that's right. You recall, I suppose, how the alphabet was just getting traction..." Crowley made noncommittal noises as Aziraphale babbled on, giving a reproachful look to a fork nestled on a velvet pillow. As they passed under the archway leading into the exhibit Aziraphale clutched her manicured fingers together and gazed starry eyed at the battered, dismembered statues.

The both of them had parts of their identities which the other, in full awareness of their hypocrisy, found a bit too human. In Aziraphale, to Crowley, it was this love of museums. The demon considered this room to be no different from the side of a curb loaded with oversized trash. It had better lighting, he'd give it that, but it was still a slapdash crowd of worn out objects left behind by their usefulness. It would be one thing if they still had the old shine, the old glory to them, but they looked more like they had been butchered and turned to jerky than carefully excavated and preserved.

Time, Crowley thought, what a bastard.

It was then that he noticed that Aziraphale has stopped talking, suggesting that he had been meant to be paying attention to some inane lecture (and that the angel had just now realized he hadn't been).

“Sorry, what was that again?”

Azirapahale cleared her throat, beckoning his attention, and began reading the placard next to one of the works.

“Look here: 'Relief Profile of Man, Possibly a Eunuch'” she crossed her arms, jerked her head towards another pedestal, “and then that: 'Standing Girl.'” Crowley leaned towards the indicated pieces, shook his head.

“See what I've been telling you? They can't even label them right. I'd rather remember the old kingdom as it was, thanks.” He straightened up, rolling his shoulders and peering around the room for more mistakes to pick at. Beside him Aziraphale sighed.

“My dear...” she began in that unfamiliar high voice (and he had just gotten accustomed to how low it had been in her previous shape) “I'm starting to get tired of everyone pretending there's only two genders.” Crowley, proud clinger-on to current fashion, owner of a bed described as minimalistic and a couch marketed as svelte, grasped for something to defend this new standard with. Perhaps it was the effect of being the older shaped being, but his motivation to taunt Aziraphale for not keeping with the times had been suffering of late.

“Yeah,” he admitted, “it's gotten old by now.”

“Why couldn't they have stuck with six?” Aziraphale huffed “Six was a good number: it gave us a nice variation didn't it? We could always stick with a nice neutral one, maybe have a go at some of the others if they struck us.” She wrinkled her nose. “I'm sick of going back and forth, same two pronouns.”

“It's not like they went away though, the other genders. People just changed the names for them. What is it now? Do they still use adrogynos these days?” Crowley asked, as if Aziraphale had any contact with contemporary culture beyond demanding it stay out of her bookstore.

“Perhaps the young people are using them, but the fact stands that a supposedly respectable museum is calling a saris a 'man' and a tumtum a 'girl.' And when I go through my papers to do my taxes, they still make me check boxes for 'M' or 'F'” 

“They could at least give us an opt out,” Crowley admitted. “'check this box for “male” this other for “female” this third one for “transcendent being of eternal energy that thinks being stuck with only two genders to choose from is a load of rubbish”' or something.”

“It's frustrating,” Aziraphale muttered “Look at what happened with Gluck, and Publick Universal Friend.”

“Yeah, but that's mostly the west isn't it? There are still a lot of other places that have options to spare.”

“And the west had been imposing their genders on them, for decades it's been.” Aziraphale sighed.

“True...”

“There's nothing to do but wait, I suppose, for them to figure things out.”

“We could always give them a nudge.”

The angel considered this.

“We could.”

 

For the rest of their visit they ignored the placards and spoke of the many genders they had known: Aylonit, Hijra, Sadhin, Invert, Ninauposkitzipxpe, Waria, Man, Muxie, Mashoga, Kur.Gar.Ra, Sekhet, Tritiya-prakrti, Woman. Aziraphale preferred to move around more, she'd spent the last few incarnations alternating male and female. Crowley had spent the last several incarnations as a man, but he was considering switching so long as he didn't have to grow his hair out for it After all, although corporeal, hairstyles and clothing were the only bodily indication of their sex. The unnecessary skin beneath was smooth and featureless.

They discussed the ethics of nudging with the ease of people who have eternity to decide on action. They tried to avoid messing with alliances, opinions, implications. Although the both of them viewed human prejudices with distaste, they would only allow themselves to lead the horse to water. Forcing them to drink, though possible, was dangerous.

“We could always help the humans on our side,” Aziraphale posited, for after the Apoca-oops-nevermind-everyone-go-home they had begun to separate from “your side” and “my side.” They were amidst that rubble now, trying to find a third option, railing against multiple dichotomies. “They've been doing quite well, they could do it themselves in a few decades.”

“We've watched too many revolutions die to make us sure,” Crowley sighed, looked nostalgic.

“And just enough succeed to give us hope” Aziraphale said low, placing her hand in his.

They stood amidst the statues of lives past, among the defiant eyes and limbs and symbols of genders that, for all of the academy's efforts, would not be silenced. They smiled.


End file.
